Dealer/Provider spoke with Esther Apter, president of Healthcare Management Solutions (HMS) and CEO of MedFORCE Technologies, Chestnut Ridge, NY, about choosing the right scanner for document-scanning software.

Dealer/Provider: What should HME providers look for when buying or replacing a scanner?

Esther Apter: They should have an auto-feed scanner, and the faster the scanner—25 pages per minute or 60 pages per minute and higher—the less time someone will be sitting there watching the documents go through. Now once the pages have gone through the scanner, the system auto files them, so there is no extra time there—but there is time in prepping and feeding the documents.

The lower-end scanners are not designed for high volume, and they are not designed with the same capabilities as some of the higher-end scanners. For example, a despeckle feature takes out the little dots that don’t belong there. A higher-end scanner will also help with shaded documents if the machine is used properly and set up correctly. This does not mean you have to buy the most expensive scanner on the market, but you certainly should purchase something with enough capability and durability to handle volume.

D/P: Do you recommend scanners to customers? 

Apter: We are always testing new scanners. We have the scanner companies knocking on our door dropping them off for us to test because we sell pretty high volume at this point.  

We are committed to Canon after testing multiple brands. There are brands that have more capabilities than Canon, but for the dollar value you get an excellent scanner. Canon scanners were originally designed for banking, then they moved into health care, so many of their scanners will take an ID card and put it right through. A lot of the other scanners have issues with that. Canons are priced just right for an average DME provider, and they have anywhere from 25 pages to 90 pages per minute capacity. We go through extensive testing because I won’t recommend something that I have not used.

D/P: Are multifunction machines a wise investment? 

Apter: Multifunction machines are a case of being cheap where you shouldn’t be. You are trying to get more out of the equipment, but you should really focus and do it right. When you have something with a lot of different features, chances are they are not specializing in any one feature. Multifunctions can be useful in cases where it is not your primary scanning machine, but for regular full access scanning, I’m not a big believer. While MedFORCE will work with any scanner, we have scanners and processes that we recommend based on our experience, and on the experience of our thousands of customers. It all goes back to efficiency.

D/P: Why is improving efficiency so important in today’s environment?

Apter: There is a lot of fear out there. Instead of the gloom and doom, what people should be doing is teaching providers how to survive. Margins are getting smaller, survival is much more difficult, but definitely possible. We as an industry are here to stay. As margins get smaller, there is less tolerance for inefficiencies. Some examples of efficiencies that can help margins are: document imaging, posting ERNs, submitting all claims electronically. Other health care industries are handling many more transactions electronically. Why would you manually post a transaction that the computer could handle for you? You can’t afford that.

Basically, anything you can do to streamline and automate will create efficiencies and save you money. My attitude has always been: you can survive, you will survive, you just need to reevaluate how you do business and cut the excess fat. That’s all you need to do.

Greg Thompson, editor of Dealer/Provider, conducted this interview.